Sept 27-28

Sept 27-28

Tuesday was our second to last OR day and we had a full schedule.  We tried to get all the patients who were candidates for surgery scheduled on this trip.  A few had to be postponed for illness and a few who were scheduled didn’t actually come to the hospital.  We had a nice rhythm going throughout the OR.  We were occupying 3 ORs, and there were two other rooms that the local team was using, one for elective procedures, and one for trauma.  They weren’t being used all of the time, but often they were.  Since we were using three of their rooms, they certainly felt the impact.

Each day we had breakfast in the hotel.  Mostly it consisted of eggs, fruit, arepa (corn cake), sometimes toast, sometimes beans, sometimes meat or fish.  Some days there were no eggs or beans available.  Lunch was provided by the Toyota corporation which is a huge corporate sponsor of Rotaplast.  The local Rotarians were with us each day, serving as translators, helpers, serving our meals and helping with all kinds of things.  Dinner was available in the hotel, usually chicken, fish, meat and/or other side dishes.  We also had a hospitality room where we could meet to relax and have snacks, sometimes that was sufficient for dinner.  There were about 15 OR cases on Tuesday.

Wednesday was our last OR day.  I had to leave in the morning to take the only daily flight from Cumana to Caracas in order to leave for home on Thursday am.  I am participating/speaking at a conference on Global Health at CHOP on Friday.  The rest of the team had a full OR day, will see follow up patients on Thursday and have a closing ceremony/party with the Rotarians.  On Friday they will travel to Caracas and leave on Saturday.  Some have to fly home via San Francisco in order to return equipment to Rotaplast headquarter.

Hopefully I will have some follow up information and photos to post.  It was a great trip; I made some new friends and got to know some colleagues better!